Venturers Vs Bradford-on-Avon, Wednesday June 6th

Venturers 142-5 (20), Bradford-on-Avon 129-6 (20)

This was the kind of efficient performance that we are capable of producing more often than we do. Bradford are a good team and both sides were trying to win all the time. Their fielding let them down a bit, perhaps.

We started hesitantly. Krish had scored one single by the time he played down the wrong line to a completely straight ball, and Shreyas also had only one scoring shot off his first dozen balls. Joji was more positive and after he was out, Rubbiany was more positive still, hitting two substantial sixes. There were also two balls that yielded six extras each. First, a ball that kept a bit low eluded the wicket-keeper: Joji and Shreyas ran a bye as slip chased back, picked up, and threw on the bounce, hitting the keeper’s unused helmet. Later, a wide drifted past Siddhanth’s pads and dribbled away for a single, and square leg’s wild throw finished at the long-off boundary. Bradford’s leg-spinner was a puzzle to everybody, though, and there were two or three dropped catches, none of them completely easy. Eventually Rubbiany got too ambitious and missed, and by that time Shreyas had also speeded up and then got out, but we already had a good score. Siddanth added a few and Tom a brisk dozen.

It looked like plenty of runs. But it quickly became clear that the leg-spinner could bat. Imran cycled through his bowlers as each one, except Imran himself, started to leak runs: Mizan and Dinesh, very effective a few days ago, were expensive today, and Joji was ineffective too. The other opener was also very competent, but didn’t have the same timing. We were beginning to lose. Tom and Gregory had not yet been tried. Tom also started with a wide and a four ball, but then he moved one back in to the more dangerous batsman. Already committed to the pull, he was cramped for room and bottom-edged onto his stumps. The other opener found Gregory hard to deal with, failed to get to the pitch and hit a catch to Siddanth. Tom cleaned up two more in two balls with full induckers, and also conceded only seven more runs after six off his first three. That effectively won the match for us. Gregory was only slightly less economical so, even after the early boost, Bradford were far behind the run rate and Dinesh, Krish and Joji were able to finish off quite comfortably.